[user104658]

Honestly I think it's very complex and it may well be the case that those two boys were always irredemably violent and dangerous, but I still have to disagree that they should have been tried or sentenced as adults at 10 years old. Not because of the specifics of that case - but because the idea that we should EVER start convicting children of crimes as if they were adults is a really horrendous road to go down.

That said, as an adult Venables at least has at this point surely proven beyond a doubt that he is, for whatever reason, a permanently dangerous individual and its ridiculous that he is repeatedly in and out with these light sentences. It should have been a condition of their initial release that ANY violent / sexual or similar criminal activity after release would result in immediately returning to prison to serve a full adult life term for the original murder.